History

My name is Tad Armstrong. I’m proud of being a lawyer in Edwardsville, Illinois, U.S.A. in spite of “in-your-face” relentless criticism of lawyers, judges and “the law.” I expressed my frustration to a local businessman: “Bill, I don’t mind constructive criticism, but everyday I come into this coffee shop and overhear people with the best of intentions, believing they know the law, feed other good people a line of malarkey. No wonder people are fed up with the law. Much of what they think they know isn’t close to reality.” “That’s your fault, Armstrong. You lawyers have done a poor job of educating the rest of us. It’s as if lawyers think they have to keep it from us unless they charge a fee for it!” I saw red and the challenge was on, but what challenge, exactly?

I wanted people to learn the law, but “the law” is a vast landscape. My coffee shop buddies claimed to be experts at running the Country, but, in reality, what did they really know about the Country? About the bottom-line fundamentals such as the Constitution? And, honestly, I was in the same boat. My “30-years-of-practicing-everything-but-Constitutional-law-knowledge” of the Constitution was based on the same source as everyone else — the media! What if the media was inaccurate or misleading or just didn’t have enough space or time to educate us adequately? What if my friend Bill was right? What if “We, the Lawyers” had failed “We, the People?” Should the citizens of this great Country have to pay lawyers to learn of the promises, responsibilities and meaning of the world’s most revered legal document — ironically, a document primarily drafted by, guess who, Lawyers? NO!!!

THE CHALLENGE WAS ON! LITTLE DID I KNOW WHERE IT WOULD LEAD!

I put a note in my church bulletin and a flyer at the coffee shop. Eighty people showed at the first meeting. “I’m not exactly sure how we are going to do this,” I said, “but if you are willing to put forth the effort, so am I. Let’s meet every month and take a journey through the United States Constitution. Together, I am betting we will learn something about who we claim to be.” We must have done something right — February 6, 2007, will be the 25th monthly meeting (the 2nd Anniversary) of the ELL Charter Club.

At our 1st Anniversary, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch took notice and wrote an article about our Club. Were it not for that publicity, perhaps the Charter Club would be the only Club and we would be content to continue the journey alone. I started getting calls from around the area. People were eager to know when ELL would start a Club in their Hometown. The response was unexpected, unsolicited and problematic. How to respond? To that point, all of the educational material I had prepared, as well as all of my time, was free of charge to the Club Members. They offered compensation and I declined. My reward was their response to what had become my passion – they kept coming back!

I couldn’t begin to meet monthly in all of the communities that responded and I knew I would not be able to handle the administration of countless Clubs without compensation. After all, I still had a law practice to run and a living to make - and still do. As a result, the “ELL Concept” was born and ELL took its show “on the road.”